Whales.

We have been blessed beyond words with the opportunity to visit our dear friends Lindsay and Elliott in the Dominican Republic next week! We are so so so excited! We haven't seen them since last February when we met them in Santa Fe one weekend. (at the Inn of the Governers in Santa Fe last year)

So little preggo Lindsay has been brainstorming things to do while we're in the DR and she came across this precious hotel called the Atlantis Hotel on the north coast peninsula called Samana. Anyway.... Samana is apparently the place where thousands of humpback whales migrate from Jan-March!!!!!! Check it out! I can't wait. Have you ever been whale watching? We're super excited!!!!!

Snow Day!

We finally had a snow day yesterday! Well sort of. I got to leave work early at 3 p.m. and we didn't have to come in today until 10 a.m. because of the icy roads. We even had some snow, too! I love the snow and how clean everything looks with a fresh white blanket over it. It makes me forget how brown and dusty West Texas is. I'm sure the ice/snow will be gone by this afternoon (and it will probably be 65 degrees again tomorrow) but for now I'm snuggled in my Uggs and scarf pretending to work and hoping it will stay a little longer.

The pretty ice covered crepe myrtle in our front yard:Gunner is hilarious in the snow! He just leaps and prances all around stopping every five seconds to shake the snow off his paws! so funny!

game night.

This past weekend we went out with Chris and Denae (our neighbors) and Brice and Kristin. We ate dinner at this place called Gilberts. I wish I had a picture of the dinner table because I've never seen so much food! On Saturday nights they have family style chinese food. From the minute we sat down, they brought tray after tray of some of the best chinese food I've ever had! I definitely recommend Gilberts!

After dinner we went to Main Event to bowl and play games. The boys loved the racing games! haha. They were like kids again. They even waited in line with the 10 year olds to get a chance to play! It was great.

We played Dance Dance Revolution (and by the way, I had no idea that people get THIS into it! It was un-real!) Denae became obsessed with the quarter game....Chris better watch her if they ever go to Vegas! ha. I also liked Deal or No Deal but I'm pretty sure it was rigged.

and in case you haven't been to an "arcade" type place in 10 years, like me..... they no longer give you tickets or tokens!!!! I couldn't believe it! You get a card that has the amount of money you paid for on it and you swipe the card on each of the games and it charges you that way. They even keep track of the amount of 'tickets' or points you get on the card too. I mean, yes, it was very high tech and probably more efficient but it made me a little sad to think that my kids will never know the feeling of watching all the tickets come out come out when you win or folding them up like an accordion or feeding the long strand into the ticket counter to see how many you have like the good 'ole days at Thunder Road in Branson.

oh how I love Christmas time.

I know this is a month late, but I was just looking through our photos from our Christmas break - which was amazing - and wishing we could go back. I miss our christmas tree. and our christmas lights. and our stockings. and drinking hot chocolate every night. and signing e-mails with merry christmas. and constatnly being reminded of the birth of our Savior.

(here's a picture of our tree :)

Mark and I both had two full weeks off for Christmas and we were so blessed to have time to spend with both of our families and friends. We spent the week of Christmas in Amarillo with the whole Mason family. I always LOVE it when all the Mason kids are together. We had a blast eating lots of yummy food (from the new and improved Mason kitchen which we all played a part in finishing just in time for Christmas Eve dinner).

Our first gingerbread house:

One of my favorite presents - a painting of our first little house!

Anne Marie and I at dinner on Christmas Day.

We drove from Amarillo back to Lubbock on the 27th to pick up Gunner and then drive to Ft. Worth. We dropped Gunner off at camp Mayse for the week (I can't tell you how thankful we are that Mark's cousins love to take care of Gunner!). We spent the evening with my family and my Grandmama in Ft. Worth then drove the next day with my family all the way to Baton Rouge to meet the cousins. We had a blast in BR, as always, laughing, shopping and playing games for three days.

My other favorite present, a 'Project Runway - limited edition' sewing machine! I love it! I've been working on some placemats as my first project and they're super cute if I say so myself :)
Shopping with the girls.

boys playing Settlers of Catan - our new favorite game!

The whole family played Four on a Couch! (it was the longest game in the history of Four on a Couch and of course, the women won!)

Then Mark and I drove back to the Dallas area and met our friends, Adam and Jenni, at the Hefton's lake house to welcome in the New Year. It was the perfect, relaxing New Year's Eve!
(photos coming)

We spent the next few days in Dallas shopping and seeing friends. The break was fantastic and all the driving was so worth it, but needless to say we were glad to get home.

In other news.... a week before Christmas I got a really bad 24 hour bug!! While spending a good eight hours extremely sick in the bathroom I got really dehydrated, passed out and hit my head on the tile floor resulting in this lovely black eye:

The funny part was.... I spent the whole 12 hours of the next day in bed. Mark was soooo sweet and took great care of me but he kept asking if I wanted to get up and wash my face b/c I still had my make up from the day before..... when I finally looked in the mirror much later I saw the black eye and realized that's what Mark was talking about. He thought it was make up!! haha